Famous Value Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Value poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous value poems. These examples illustrate what a famous value poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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The Cambaroora Star

by Henry Lawson
 So you're writing for a paper? Well, it's nothing very new 
To be writing yards of drivel for a tidy little screw; 
You are young and educated, and a clever chap you are, 
But you'll never run a paper like the CAMBAROORA STAR. 
Though in point of education I am nothing but a dunce, 
I myself -- you mayn't...Read more of this...

The Absinthe Drinkers

by Robert William Service
 He's yonder, on the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix,
The little wizened Spanish man, I see him every day.
He's sitting with his Pernod on his customary chair;
He's staring at the passers with his customary stare.
He never takes his piercing eyes from off that moving throng,
That current cosmopolitan meandering along:
Dark diplomats from Martinique, pale Rastas from Peru,
An Englishman from...Read more of this...

508. Inscription at Friars' Carse Hermitage

by Robert Burns
 TO Riddell, much lamented man,
 This ivied cot was dear;
Wandr’er, dost value matchless worth?
 This ivied cot revere....Read more of this...

Sonnet XXXIV: Charmd by Thy Suffrage

by Charlotte Turner Smith
 Charm'd by thy suffrage, shall I yet aspire 
(All inauspicious as my fate appears,
By troubles darken'd, that encrease with years,)
To guide the crayon, or to touch the lyre?
Ah me!---the sister Muses still require
A spirit free from all intrusive fears,
Nor will they deign to wipe away the tears
Of vain regret, that dim their sacred fire.
But when thy envied sanction crowns...Read more of this...

To disappear enhances --

by Emily Dickinson
 To disappear enhances --
The Man that runs away
Is tinctured for an instant
With Immortality

But yesterday a Vagrant --
Today in Memory lain
With superstitious value
We tamper with "Again"

But "Never" far as Honor
Withdraws the Worthless thing
And impotent to cherish
We hasten to adorn --

Of Death the sternest function
That just as we discern
The Excellence defies us --
Securest gathered then

The Fruit perverse to plucking,
But leaning to...Read more of this...

A Ballad of Footmen

by Amy Lowell
 Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars?
Do men find life so full of humour and joy
That for want of excitement they smash up the toy?
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same. All these men by...Read more of this...

The Manor Farm

by Edward Thomas
 THE rock-like mud unfroze a little, and rills 
Ran and sparkled down each side of the road 
Under the catkins wagging in the hedge. 
But earth would have her sleep out, spite of the sun; 
Nor did I value that thin gliding beam 
More than a pretty February thing 
Till I came down to the old manor farm, 
And...Read more of this...

To Stella Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems

by Jonathan Swift
 As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of...Read more of this...

Orinda To Lucasia Parting October 1661 At London

by Katherine Philips
 Adieu dear object of my Love's excess,
And with thee all my hopes of happiness,
With the same fervent and unchanged heart
Which did it's whole self once to thee impart,
(And which though fortune has so sorely bruis'd,
Would suffer more, to be from this excus'd)
I to resign thy dear Converse submit,
Since I can neither keep, nor merit it.
Thou hast too long to...Read more of this...

Wedding Morn

by D. H. Lawrence
The morning breaks like a pomegranate
In a shining crack of red,
Ah, when to-morrow the dawn comes late
Whitening across the bed,
It will find me watching at the marriage gate
And waiting while light is shed
On him who is sleeping satiate,
With a sunk, abandoned head.

And when the dawn comes creeping in,
Cautiously I shall raise
Myself to watch the morning win
My first of days,
As it...Read more of this...

To Mr. Vaughan Silurist on His Poems

by Katherine Philips
 Had I ador'd the multitude, and thence
Got an antipathy to wit and sence,
And hug'd that fate, in hope the world would grant
'Twas good -- affection to be ignorant;
Yet the least ray of thy bright fancy seen
I had converted, or excuseless been:
For each birth of thy muse to after-times
Shall expatiate for all this age's crimes.
First shines the Armoret, twice crown'd...Read more of this...

The Silent Ones

by Robert William Service
 I'm just an ordinary chap
 Who comes home to his tea,
And mostly I don't care a rap
 What people think of me;
I do my job and take my pay,
 And love of peace expound;
But as I go my patient way,
 --Don't push me round.

Though I respect authority
 And order never flout,
When Law and Justice disagree
 You can include me...Read more of this...

Replying to Subprefect Zhang

by Wang Wei
 Old age think good quiet 
Everything not concern heart 
Self attend without great plan 
Empty know return old forest 
Pine wind blow undo belt 
Hill moon light pluck qin 
Gentleman ask end open reason 
Fisherman song enter riverbank deep 


Now in old age, I know the value of silence, 
The world's affairs no longer stir my heart. 
Turning to...Read more of this...

I had a guinea golden

by Emily Dickinson
 I had a guinea golden --
I lost it in the sand --
And tho' the sum was simple
And pounds were in the land --
Still, had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye --
That when I could not find it --
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson Robin --
Who sang full many a day
But when the woods were painted,
He,...Read more of this...

To my Lady Berkeley Afflicted upon her Son My Lord BERKELEYs Early Engaging in the Sea-Service

by Anne Killigrew
 SO the renowned Ithacensian Queen
In Tears for her Telemachus was seen, 
When leaving Home, he did attempt the Ire
Of rageing Seas, to seek his absent Sire: 
Such bitter Sighs her tender Breast did rend; 
But had she known a God did him attend, 
And would with Glory bring him safe again, 
Bright Thoughts would then have dispossess't her Pain....Read more of this...

My Room

by Robert William Service
 I think the things I own and love
 Acquire a sense of me,
That gives them value far above
 The worth that others see.
My chattels are of me a part:
 This chair on which I sit
Would break its overstuffed old heart
 If I made junk of it.

To humble needs with which I live,
 My books, my desk, my bed,
A personality...Read more of this...

haunting the quark

by Rg Gregory
 (I)
if you can’t scientifically explain it
dawkins says it has no value – some hope
inside the mechanical framework of a guess
(as far as any fact can truly grope)
doubts roam – mere looking can’t attain it

twentieth-century science perceived that mess
the more you probed the inner – more the scope
for chaos (uncertainty) – no mind could drain it
tie it to a marriage...Read more of this...

Niagara

by Vachel Lindsay
 I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.

The women buy their lace and cry: —
"O such a delicate design,"
And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,
Forgetting great...Read more of this...

Silent Equality

by Dejan Stojanovic
It is not possible to say more than it is possible. 
Ambition kills value; if unjustified it will 
Eat its own life, 
Kill someone else's desire to fly, 
Cut their wings, suck their air. 
Get out, but don't cause unneeded accidents; 
There is only as much space, only as much time, 
Only as much desire, only as many words, 
Only...Read more of this...

Captain Teach alias Black Beard

by William Topaz McGonagall
 Edward Teach was a native of Bristol, and sailed from that port
On board a privateer, in search of sport,
As one of the crew, during the French War in that station,
And for personal courage he soon gained his Captain's approbation. 

'Twas in the spring of 1717, Captajn Harnigold and Teach sailed from Providence
For the continent of America, and no further...Read more of this...

The Deacons Masterpiece Or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay: A Logical Story

by Oliver Wendell Holmes
 Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus...Read more of this...

Sonnet I

by Francesco Petrarch
SONNET I. Voi, ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono. HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION  Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hearOf those sad sighs with which my heart I fedWhen early youth my mazy wanderings led,Fondly diverse from what I now appear,Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic...Read more of this...

The Hour Before Dawn

by William Butler Yeats
 A cursing rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's...Read more of this...

Had this one Day not been

by Emily Dickinson
 Had this one Day not been.
Or could it cease to be
How smitten, how superfluous,
Were every other Day!

Lest Love should value less
What Loss would value more
Had it the stricken privilege,
It cherishes before....Read more of this...

Lord Walters Wife

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 I

'But where do you go?' said the lady, while both sat under the yew,
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

II

'Because I fear you,' he answered;--'because you are far too fair,
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd-coloured hair.'

III

'Oh that,' she said, 'is no reason! Such knots are quickly...Read more of this...

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